Alstom to support Liverpool youngsters with new skills programme

21/03/2017

Alstom has pledged to support over 200 talented youngsters develop the skills they need to get into the best careers. This initiative is part of the Alstom Foundation yearly programme. This year Alstom Foundation will support 18 projects spread across all continents with a particular focus on employability, welfare and children’s education.

In the UK, Alstom is providing one year of funding for the Social Mobility Foundation’s five year Aspiring Professionals Programme for talented youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds. The programmes help to provide youngsters with the skills they need to attend top universities and enter exciting professions.

Alstom’s sponsorship will help the Social Mobility Foundation open a new Liverpool office to deliver the scheme.

Alstom will help to drive the programme through employee volunteers who will encourage the disadvantaged youngsters to consider a career in rail. They will provide mentoring, offer internships or work experience with Alstom, run workshops and interview preparation sessions, and help with university visits.

The partnership builds on the commitment Alstom has already made to the Liverpool area through the construction of a new technology centre and training academy in Widnes. The new centre represents an investment of £21 million and could create up to 600 jobs for local people in the long term, including around 60 apprenticeships.

Rebecca Taylor, Sustainability Manager, Alstom UK & Ireland, said: “It is vital that all young people have access to the same opportunities, and this partnership, along with our new technology centre in Widnes, demonstrates that Alstom is playing a key role in ensuring that everyone in the local community is able to develop the skills to thrive.”

David Johnston, Chief Executive, Social Mobility Foundation, said: “We are delighted to be receiving vital support from the Alstom Foundation to enable us to support more young people in the Liverpool area. We know from the many young people we have supported thus far that if they’re given the same opportunity as others they will show they have the same ability to enter leading universities and employers and we look forward to working with Alstom to develop their potential.”

Alstom has been at the heart of the UK’s rail industry for over 80 years, having built around a third of the UK’s rail vehicles and around half of the trains currently running on the London Underground.

Alstom employs a growing workforce of 3,200 people at 12 industrial sites in the UK delivering services to operators, signalling equipment and railway infrastructure. It built the Pendolinos for the West Coast Main Line and maintains them for Virgin’s 34 million annual passengers, it is working on the fit-out of London’s Crossrail tunnels and is delivering major signalling and electrification schemes for Network Rail.

Alstom has invested £20 million in a state-of-the-art transport technology centre and training in Widnes, which will be built by summer 2017. The site has the potential to create up to 600 direct and indirect jobs across the whole of the UK.

About Social Mobility Foundation

The Social Mobility Foundation is a charity that helps young people from low-income backgrounds (the majority of whom are eligible for Free School Meals) enter universities and top professions. www.socialmobility.org.uk

The SMF targets 11 different career strands where young people from less privileged backgrounds are under-represented, including Medicine, Engineering, Law and Banking. It has over 1200 students in its 2016 cohort.

The current trustees of the SMF include Sir Victor Blank (Chairman), Trevor Phillips, Fraser Nelson and Sir Terry Leahy. Employer supporters of the SMF include J.P. Morgan, KPMG, Linklaters, Clifford Chance and CH2M.

The SMF’s programmes feature a mentor from your chosen profession, university application support (trips to universities, workshops on applying to university, aptitude tests and interviews), work placements and skills sessions across the sixth-form and university years.

A recent evaluation of the SMF’s work by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found the SMF’s work increased the probability of attending a Russell Group institution by up to 27% and of attending a university most visited by top employers by up to 43%, an impact the IFS likened to achieving three A* grades at A-level rather than three As. Many of the young people it supported in its earliest years now work in the country’s leading professions.